{"id":415,"date":"2008-07-08T20:39:53","date_gmt":"2008-07-08T12:39:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=415"},"modified":"2010-01-14T15:37:21","modified_gmt":"2010-01-14T07:37:21","slug":"blurb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2008\/07\/08\/blurb\/","title":{"rendered":"*B(l)urb…!*"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"There’re dates every year I dread. One is Ling’s birthday, and the other is Valentine’s Day. OK, I should clarify that; I dread not the day itself, but the run-up to it and specifically what I should buy her for each of the two occasions. It’s one of those ‘fine print’ statements in a marital contract.:)<\/p>\n

But in all seriousness, I usually start looking for the appropriate presents and tokens well in advance, say like 3-4 months early. Ling’s birthday is in September, I planned for a Photobook of the first four years of our life together, which also is the title I’ve chosen for the book but in Latin “Vita Una”, or “Life in One”.<\/p>\n

There’re of course many service providers who’d do this sort of printing, but after a bit of scouting around, I settled on Blurb. The package they had was the most attractive, and reviews for their book printing were generally quite positive.<\/p>\n

\"\"So, over a space of 4 days in late June, I dug out all the old early paktoh, wedding, honeymoon and vacation photos I’ve taken, then re-sampled, tweaked images and readjusted color for printing, then imported them into Blurb’s proprietary publishing software, and did the layout and text. Ling probably suspected that something fishy was going on when she noticed that every night I was pouring over photos and putting them together into some sort of publishable layout.:)<\/p>\n

In all, I chose 242 pictures for the 160 page book, the majority of them full page pictures alongside several two-page panoramic shots. It was certainly a lot of work, the more so as once you’ve uploaded and confirmed the book for printing, you’re not gonna be able to change anything.<\/p>\n

The book turned out quite nicely, though there were two ink smudges that I’m furious about. Still, the lady of the house is thrilled at the effort that’s gone in.:) Yeah, it’s an early birthday present, but she’s getting a second prezzie for her actual birthday in a few months’ time. The larger sized pictures of the book are right here<\/a>.:)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’re dates every year I dread. One is Ling’s birthday, and the other is Valentine’s Day. OK, I should clarify that; I dread not the day itself, but the run-up to it and specifically what I should buy her for<\/p>\n

Read More *B(l)urb…!*<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,8],"tags":[435],"class_list":["post-415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-home","category-books","tag-vita-una","wpcat-6-id","wpcat-8-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}